Etan Patz | |
|---|---|
 Etan Patz on September 16, 1978 | |
| Born | October 9, 1972 New York City, U.S. |
| Disappeared | May 25, 1979 (aged 6) New York City, U.S. |
| Status | Missing for 45 years, 5 months and 28 days; declared dead in absentia on June 19, 2001 (aged 28) |
| Died | c. May 25, 1979 (aged 6) |
| Cause of death | Murder by strangulation (presumed)[a] |
| Known for | One of the first missing-child cases to have a photo appear on a milk carton |
| Height | 3 ft 4 in (102 cm)[1] |
| Parent(s) | Stanley Patz Julie Patz |
| Date | May 25, 1979 |
|---|---|
| Location | New York City, U.S. |
| Type | Disappearance, presumed child murder, presumed child abduction |
| Motive | Unclear, allegedly sexual[2] |
| Deaths | Etan Kalil Patz (presumed) |
| Accused | Jose Ramos (not formally charged, but speculation exists) |
| Convicted | Pedro Hernandez |
| Verdict | Mistrial[b] (2015; first trial) Guilty on both counts (2017; second trial) |
| Convictions | Second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping (2017)[3] |
| Sentence | Life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years |
Etan Kalil Patz (/ˈeɪtɑːn ˈpeɪts/; October 9, 1972 – May 25, 1979) was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Several years after he disappeared, Patz was one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the early 1980s.[4] In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated May 25—the anniversary of Etan's disappearance—as National Missing Children's Day in the United States.
Decades later, it was determined that Patz had been abducted and murdered the same day that he went missing. The case was reopened in 2010 by the Manhattan District Attorney's office. In 2012, the FBI excavated the basement of the alleged crime scene near the Patz residence but discovered no new evidence. Pedro Hernandez—a suspect who confessed—was charged and indicted later that year on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. In 2014, the case went through a series of hearings to determine whether or not Hernandez's statements before he received his Miranda warning were legally admissible at trial. His trial began in January 2015 and it ended with a mistrial that May, when 1 of the 12 jurors held out. The retrial began on October 19, 2016, and it was concluded on February 14, 2017, after nine days of deliberations, when the jury found Hernandez guilty of murder and kidnapping.[5] Hernandez was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison on April 18, 2017. Hernandez will not be eligible for parole for 25 years.[6]
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- ^ Height; URL accessed November 4, 2020.
- ^ "Jury finds Pedro Hernandez guilty in 1979 murder, kidnapping of Etan Patz".
- ^ "Inmate Information - HERNANDEZ, PEDRO".
- ^ Toppo, Greg (February 14, 2017). "Etan Patz – boy on the milk carton – gets justice: Man convicted in 1979 murder". USA Today. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
- ^ "Statement from John F. Clark on the verdict in the Etan Patz trial". missingkids.org. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. February 14, 2017. Archived from the original on June 15, 2020. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "Man gets 25 years in 1979 case of missing boy Etan Patz". NY Daily News. April 18, 2017. Archived from the original on April 19, 2017. Retrieved July 16, 2017.